Stop Making Me Say Goodbye
by Dazzling
Summary: Sequel to 'Stop Making Me Love You'. The aftermath of the kiss.


Author: Dazzling  
Email: glitter_and_glam@hotmail.com  
Disclaimers: I wish. Don Bellasario owns everything JAG and the songs are owned by 'Mutt' Lange (with huge thanks to Chris for giving me the song and lyrics!), and 5IVE.  
Notes: This is the sequel to "Stop Making Me Love You', and is set after the party. So, nothing after 'Lifeline' happened.  
Distribution: If my name stays and you ask first, go for it.  
Reviews and Feedback: Please?!! But no flames.  
  
STOP MAKING ME SAY GOODBYE  
  
Their hands touched, the slightest of contacts. Mac looked down quickly, then up at Harm, then at Mic. Smiling at her fiancé, she moved towards him and they cut the cake together.  
  
When the cheering and well wishing had subsided, and the crowd began to thin out, Mac pulled Mic aside. "Mic, I need for you to go home without me. I have to discuss some stuff with the Admiral - work stuff." He looked at her questioningly, but her eyes were pleading, and he nodded slowly.   
  
"Sure thing, luv," he said, kissing her quickly. Mic farewelled the Admiral and blew Mac one last kiss before walking out the door. Looking over, she saw that Harm had bade Renee goodbye, and she too was leaving - without him. Harm waited until Renee had hopped in her car and driven off, before turning back from the door. He walked slowly over to Mac, took her arm, and led her out onto the porch. Once they were out of the Admiral's sight, Harm switched his grip to her shoulder and gently spun her around so that she was looking him in the eye.  
  
"We need to talk about what happened back there, Mac," he said, leaning back against the railing and gazing at her, waiting for a reply.  
  
"What do you mean? We were saying goodbye, that's all." Her sentences came out in a rush, and she turned away from him again, her hair hiding her eyes.  
  
Harm moved so that he was in front of her once more, and tipped her chin up to face him. "I think we both know that it was a little more than just a goodbye, Mac," he told her quietly.  
  
"Harm...I'm getting married. I slipped up, that's all. I'm sorry, but I really was only saying goodbye." Mac turned yet again and began to walk away from him. Harm took a deep breath. It was now or never.  
  
"Do you love me, Mac?" he called out after her. She turned around, stunned, and Harm was shocked to see that there were tears slowly making their way down her face and dripping onto her dress.  
  
"The sign says "Do not touch" -you're out of bounds  
You're forbidden fruit, don't come around  
It says don't make plans 'cause in your hand  
Is a promise made to another man."  
  
Without giving her time to reply, Harm continued, needing to get it out. "Because I think I love you. And not having you ever know that would be the worst mistake I could possibly make."  
  
"Cause when you're around my defences go down  
Feelings get stronger, looks get longer  
The closer you come, the weaker I get  
If it ain't happened now, just ain't happened yet."  
  
She stormed up to him, eyes blazing behind the tears. "That's not a question you get to ask, and that's not something you get to tell me. I'm getting married soon, Harm. To Mic. The guy I love. So I'm gonna forget that we even had this conversation, and whatever it was that happened to make us start having it in the first place, and then continue with my life. I suggest you get on with yours."  
  
"So please, please, please go  
I'm not strong enough to say no  
Please, please don't stay  
I'm not man enough to walk away  
Please, please pass by  
I can't resist you even though I try  
So please go, I'm not strong enough to say no."  
  
Harm nodded, no expression on his face after her outburst. He stood up stiffly, and walked in the direction of the driveway, arms dangling, head hung.  
  
"The sign says "Slow down - Slippery ice"  
You've got dangerous curves, don't think twice  
It says, "Not For Sale," you're spoken for  
Just take your heart and walk out the door."  
  
"But yes. I loved you once. Maybe I still do. I don't know. So, before we analyse this to death, let's walk away fro it now." She spoke softly, but Harm still heard every word, and read the emotion behind it.  
  
"Cause when you're around my defences go down  
Feelings get stronger, looks get longer  
The closer you come, the weaker I get  
If it ain't happened now, just ain't happened yet."  
  
He swivelled slowly on his heel, rotating so that he was facing her. His gaze met hers, and she looked away, tears falling. "It...it doesn't mean anything. It CAN'T mean anything," she said, shaking her head, wondering who she was really trying to convince. "We're partners. Friends. Nothing more."  
  
"So please, please, please go  
I'm not strong enough to say no  
Please, please don't stay  
I'm not man enough to walk away  
Please, please pass by  
I can't resist you even though I try  
So please go, I'm not strong enough to say no."  
  
She sunk down into one of the chairs on the porch and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Harm stayed where he was for a moment, deep in thought. Then, as if moving in slo-mo, he came to her side and pulled her into a hug.  
  
"Don't say I didn't warn you, don't say you didn't know  
Don't wait till it's too late and then try to go  
The closer you come, the weaker I get  
If it ain't happened now, just ain't happened yet."  
  
"Shhh... c'mon, Marine, don't cry," he whispered, rocking her gently back and forth. "You're right. We've been working together for four years. Of course it doesn't mean anything."  
  
Mac nodded into his shoulder. She pulled back from the security of his embrace and wiped her eyes a final time. Giving him a tearful half smile, she said, "Guess I better get going, then."  
  
"I'm beggin' you baby please, please, please go  
I'm not strong enough to say no  
Please, please don't stay  
I'm not man enough to walk away  
Please, please pass by  
I can't resist you even though I try  
So please go, I'm not strong enough to say no."  
  
Harm nodded too. He wiped a tear from his own eye, one that went without notice from Mac, and put his coat on. "I guess this truly is goodbye then, Mac." He gave her a kiss on the cheek. "I hope you and Mic are very happy together."  
  
Mac laughed softly, the traces of tears still visible on her cheeks. "No, you don't," she told him. Taking a deep breath, she gave him a real smile. "Stop making me say goodbye to you, Harm."  
  
"Stop putting us in these situations where you have to, then," he joked, turning and walking away from her. He stopped, and called over his shoulder, "Mac? Just one question, and I promise you I'll walk away no matter what the answer. When you said that it can't mean anything...did you mean that there's nothing there for it to be anything...or that we won't allow there to be?"  
  
Harm held his breath as he waited for her answer. She looked over at him and smiled sadly. "I don't think it's really safe for either one of us to answer that," she said, and walked away.  
  
"Bye, Sarah," he whispered. Harm stood there for what seemed like an eternity, contemplating her answer to his question, analysing it, breaking it down, and coming up with the same blanks that he'd been getting for the entire conversation.  
  
He shook his head, trying to clear his mind of her. "Well, whoever it was that said that confessing your feelings was a good idea sure was a damn idiot," he muttered, before hopping in is car and heading for the first in what he was sure would be a long series of sleepless nights.  
  
2215  
Harm's Apartment  
  
Sprawled on the couch, Harm tried to convince his body to move. "Note to self," he said. "Curb excessive drinking of any kind when depressed." But no part of his self was listening. Every thought was focused on Mac.  
  
"What's wrong with you, Rabb?" he questioned himself angrily. "You both agreed that it was nothing. Even if you were lying, accept that lie as the truth for her. You can't have her. God, you only realized that you loved her now that she's engaged. What does that say?"  
  
He lifted his bottle of water in a mock salute, and downed half of its contents. Setting it on the table beside him, he knocked over a photo frame in the process. Picking it up, he grimaced. It contained a snapshot of him and Renee together at a beach somewhere.  
  
"Ok. Let's review. You know something's wrong when you grimace at a happy snap of you and your girlfriend," he muttered to himself. "It's worse than you think when you begin talking to yourself about it," he added, that last line making him smile.  
  
Opening the back of the frame, another photo fell out. This one was of Mac. "Ahhh, Sarah, Sarah, Sarah," he said to the photograph. "Finally did it. Finally made me question my sanity, and my life, and whether it meant anything without you in it in the way that I now want you to be."  
  
He felt a tear slide down his cheek. "And now you're making me cry over you, something that I never in a million years would have imagined doing, say, two years ago. So, how do we change this situation?"  
  
Harm rose from his position and began to stride up and down the length of his living room, thinking. "I could get over her. It'd be hard, but...who am I if not a man up for a challenge?" He paced a few more steps. "I could kill Brumby. That's it! No, wait, don't tempt yourself, Rabb." Up and down, up and down. "Or, I could simply..."  
  
Harm didn't wait to finish the thought, or to rationalize any further. He simply grabbed his keys and his coat and raced out of the apartment.  
  
2230  
Mac's Apartment  
  
With Mic staying elsewhere for the night, Mac had had plenty of time to rehash her conversation with Harm over and over again in her head. Every time, though, she kept getting stuck on one thing. "He loves me."  
  
"Terrific," she mumbled to herself. "The one thing that I always wanted comes at the one time when I really can't accept it. There's irony for you."  
  
She picked up a photo of her and Mic together. "Or can I?" she wondered, and then shook her head, chastising herself. "He should have told you sooner if he wanted a reaction. You're marrying Mic. You love Mic."  
  
But suddenly, she was finding it very hard to try to convince herself of something that she had always thought she knew for sure. "Damn you, Harm," she thought, as she had many times since he had kissed her.  
  
Walking over to her bookshelf, Mac reached behind the jumble of literature and other assorted trinkets, and pulled out a slim volume. Opening it up to a well-worn page, a photo of Harm fell out.  
  
"How long has it been since I've looked at this?" she asked herself, reading the poem that the photo had marked in her head. She knew it by heart; she had read those printed words so many times, and cried over them.  
  
"Almost did it, Harm," she muttered, smiling shakily when she realized that her eyes were tearing up again. "Almost made me drop everything and fall head over heels for you all over again." A single tear rolled down her cheek.  
  
A knock at the door pulled her out of her reverie, and she called, "Just a sec!" before hurrying to the bathroom to wipe her eyes and splash some water on her face - to hide her emotions.  
  
Striding back, and wondering briefly to herself who would be there at almost 11 o'clock at night, Mac pulled the door open, and was shocked to see the person standing behind it.  
  
"H...Harm," she said quietly. "What are you doing here?" He gave her a half smile, and she stood back to let him walk in. He paced for a few moments before announcing, "I've got it."  
  
Mac looked at him, confused. "Got what?" she asked, glancing at the almost wild look in his eyes, and wondering if perhaps he had been drinking a few too many beers.  
  
"You told me to stop making you have to say goodbye, so...I figured out a way so that you wouldn't ever have to again." Harm stumbled over the words as he tried to get them out, looking proud of himself and scared at the same time.  
  
Mac groaned inwardly, sure now of her 'He's completely drunk' theory. She brushed the hair out of her eyes. "Okay, I'll bite," she said finally. "What is..."  
  
Before she could finish her question, Harm had come up to her, grabbed her by the shoulders, pulled her to him, and was now in the process of giving her the most mind blowing kiss she had ever had in her life.  
  
Mac knew, inside, that she should have pulled away as soon as his lips hit hers, but the same something that had kept her there when he kissed he at the Admiral's was keeping her locked in his embrace once more. She found herself giving in to him again, tightening her arms around his neck.  
  
'What is it that makes me unable to pull away from him?' she thought, even as she lost herself in his kiss. 'Is it lust, stupidity, neediness, a combination of all three, or worst of all - love?'  
  
When the need for air became urgent, they simultaneously pulled away. Mac opened her mouth to speak, but Harm put a finger to her lips. "Be with me," he whispered. "That's my solution. I don't care about work, or rules, or what we keep insisting we can't do, even though we want to. I only care about you. Just be with me, and I swear you'll never have to say goodbye to me again."  
  
"Why do you put up a fight with your feelings?  
Girl we've been friends now for far too long  
I know some part of you thinks I'm scheming  
But there's no way I could do you wrong."  
  
"Harm, I..."  
  
"I said love, you said it ain't that  
Then you turn around and come back  
I can tell the way that you act  
That you want this."  
  
"Mac...Sarah, please," he said, interrupting her again. "I love you, okay? I'm in love with you. And I know that it shouldn't have taken your engagement for me to realize that, but it did, and I can't change that. If you still want to marry Mic, then say it and I'll walk right out of here, and you can have to say goodbye to me one more time. But something made you keep kissing me, then and now, and I'd love to explore what that something was."  
  
"Don't need to tell me we're risking this friendship   
But there's no stopping this vibe we're on   
And when we play, I can feel we're not joking   
In every stare that we share too long."  
  
He looked at her, his beautiful eyes pleading. Mac closed her eyes, thinking, making a decision. Suddenly, she opened them. Moving closer to him, she raised her hand and slapped him across the cheek. Hard. He looked at her, hurt and confused.  
  
"Don't you fight it, girl, it's only natural   
Can't disguise what's in your eyes, they say too much   
Don't deny that when we touch, it's physical   
Let it be...you and me...don't fight it, baby."  
  
"That's for making me fall in love with you," she told him. "And this," she continued, locking her arms around his neck and giving him a gentle kiss, "this is for us, and for everything we could be."  
  
Harm gazed at her hopefully from inside her embrace. She nodded. "I love you, too. And although it didn't take an engagement for me to realize that, it did take one for me to act on it. So, before either of us recognizes just how irrational we're being here, kiss me again," she told him, smiling.  
  
Harm smiled too. "Yes, ma'am," he replied, before wrapping his arms around her waist, drawing her as close to him as he could and giving her a kiss that made all the others she'd ever received from him pale in comparison.   
  
FIN  
  
A/N: Was originally going to be the first fic of mine where they didn't get together, but then I remembered how much I hate Bugme (and his fake Aussie accent), and I thought, "Bugger going off in a different direction with my writing, they belong together!" So, sorry to all the M/M shippers, I couldn't bring myself to do it, lol. =).  
  
A/N 2: Nope, this is not the end of this story line. I haven't finished yet!  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



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